Apharasis

 Apheresis: 

What is it?

The increasingly popular treatment of apheresis involves taking out a specific blood component, such as platelets, red blood cells, plasma (the liquid portion of the blood), or granulocytes (white blood cells), and giving the donor the blood's other components back. This procedure makes it possible to collect more of a specific blood component than might be done by separating it from a unit of whole blood.

The process of donating blood by apheresis takes longer than donating whole blood. The time it takes to collect blood for a whole blood donation is roughly 20 minutes, as opposed to an apheresis donation, which may take one to two hours, depending on the blood component(s) being donated.